AFAIRemember, they didn't need 60 votes.

They gutted the thing in hopes of getting 60 votes, and the republicans they gutted it for didn't vote for it anyhow.

Nope, 60 votes were still required. The Left had pinned their hopes on "reconciliation" for a while there, which was pretty much like the Right pinning their hopes on Obama not being a citizen. ("Reconciliation" bills cannot be filibustered, but they must be limited-scope, budgetary bills that do not establish new policy. Some portions of the ACA might have been passed under reconciliation, but the public option is not one of those portions.)

yep, you're right.

I was just remembering from the fight when they were still delusional about having some republican support.

It was Lieberman that actually ruined it...as always.

"Still not sure where you were going to get Public Option vote 60 from, guys; any of you think you have an answer, it's been five years, now's a good time to pipe up."

Why do you think the vote even occurred or the law even proposed? Not the Democrats or Republicans. Here's my answer: It was reality - both economic and popular. They had no choice other than to see their economy potentially crumble and social unrest occur. They are Liberals, not stupid.

I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say. If you're saying that they passed health care legislation only reluctantly because they had no choice given the pitchfork-wielding mob, multiple points:

1) Democrats have been trying to pass health care since Bill Clinton's first term.

2) The House Democrats wrote and passed a health care bill that included a public option. And of the House Democrats who opposed that bill, a lot of them (like Kucinich) were angry that it didn't go far enough.

3) Did you notice that the very nearly literal pitchfork-wielding mob was actually shouting at them to NOT pass any kind of health care legislation?

If more people voted along their personal welfare rather than personal prejudices, the Democrats would sweep every election.

I campaigned for Obama in 08. One of the guys I met was purely by accident: I stopped at one home but nobody was home, and a neighbor was out sweeping his deck and stuck up a conversation. This was in a nice area of town with wealthier houses.

So it's pretty clear he was on the conservative/Republican end of the scale, but we had a civil conversation about all sorts of issues (I also met a few nuts at the time so it was a nice change of pace). I easily hung out and talked for an hour. And one of the things he tells me about is his wife suffering from cancer. The expenses they've endured for her medical treatment and how it's affected their livelihood.

But at the end of the day, they're still living in a nice home with nice vehicles. They can still afford to eat. And I'm thinking "well what about the next guy, whose wife is in the same situation, and _can't_ afford to get her the best care and doesn't have your financial security?"

Really nice guy. But when it came down to it: he was going to vote Republican. And the reason is because he couldn't abide Democrats being pro-choice. Abortion was a more pertinent issue in his voting habits than the cancer and health care industry that affects them so deeply.

The Teabaggers have always been mooches, from the legions of them on Medicare-subsidized Rascal scooters, to newly-elected Teabaggers like Andy Harris who was incensed to discover that there was no government program he could sign up for to get health coverage (a "public option" one might call it). Teabaggerly anger is primarily directed at people hogging all the melanin.

Looks like this guy was some sort of sailor. The certificate on the left side of the screen is a Shellback certificate for sailing over the Equator, International Dateline, or Prime Meridian. I have a similar certificate. This guy may be receiving a military retirement.
What I notice about the right is that they are driven by principal. I was recently debating a co-worker on raising the minimum wage. He kept calling it a "handout", while I was trying to explain how it would inject a lot of money into the economy and how tax payers supplement low wage workers. Couldn't get through. He's dedicated to believing people who flip burgers deserve to be as poor as possible.
So you can have this guy experience the benefits of the ACA first hand, but will never embrace it out of "principal."

I find that principle is what you are personally willing to do even though it makes your own life more difficult. There's no "principle" in holding other people to poverty.

"Conservatism," as advocated by Burke, was the idea that policy should be guided by what works and is practical, rather than radical utopian change based on pie-in-the-sky ideology. It's strange that the modern sense is almost exactly the opposite, to the extent that people on the right get purged for not being orthodoxly radical conservative ("radical conservative" is my favorite oxymoron) enough and wanting to take us back to the Harding administration.
The great triumph of the far right (which is now the entire right) has been replacing "here's our plan for how to solve these problems" with scapegoats, culture wars, the economics equivalent of phrenology, and reality-denial. For instance, whether gun ownership reduces crime is an empirical question–we can actually answer it by looking at the world–but it's been turned into an unanswerable ideological point divorced from empirical reality.
It's really refreshing to see someone actually look at the effects of policies on their life rather than abstract ideological bullshit and realize that unless you're a hedge fund manager, the GOP does not benefit you. But, I don't see the hate-fear-deny ideological insanity getting out of our politics until either a) a bunch of old white people die of old age or b) something much worse than 2008 happens and reality intrudes into our political debate once again.

I've debated conservatives on guns and other things. The problem is not that they're uninformed, rather they're misinformed. They pull out their own facts and logic from their own sources.

Because she is a gay muslim commie lesbian demoncrap that's why.

Benghazi!

Chipotleghazi

Yeah, watch him pull the lever for her, then pretend to be upset when she wins.

I bet he won't be alone, either. There are going to be a whole lot of Teabagger crocodile tears in 2016.

Democrats would do well to do the following radio ad in the South and in rural areas:

"We are the Democrats, and we know you don't want to tell your friends you voted for us. But that's fine! Vote for us -- nobody will know -- and then tell your friends you voted Republican. That way we can keep providing you with health care, and you don't have to pretend to like us. We get it, and we're okay with it."